Civil Liberties Vs Security Fringe Meeting

First of all, our humblest apologies for the lack of blogging today, we have been in various fringe events throughout the morning at Conservative Party Conference (more on these later) before the Director of Big Brother Watch, Alex Deane, took to the stage at the Freedom Zone in conversation with Douglas Murrary on the topic 'civil liberties Vs security: are they compatible?'

For those who didn't attend, it was a vigorous and interesting hour that threw up a number of key questions on the topic.

I don't have much time to go into all the finer details, which I will leave for Alex to explore later this week, but I want to outline the two most intriguing compromises the two speakers came to during the discussion:

1. Douglas made the very good argument that at some point we have to reconcile the fact that 'bad' legislation is often applied alongside political correctness, thus creating the most heinous abuses of individual freedom - a point Alex agreed upon.

2. Alex argued that it is often in the aftermath of a catastrophic event that some of the worst legislation is pushed through - more as a reaction without sufficient forethought. Douglas agreed and suggested a 6 month period be applied after an event, such as a terrorist attack, in which no laws can be passed.

As I said earlier, I can't go into all the finer points now, but please do comment below on your own opinions. And please do follow @bbw1984 on twitter as we visit more fringe meetings throughout the day.

By Dylan Sharpe

Comments

[Pete]

Broadly speaking, around 6 people on average die every year from acts of terror in the UK.
Which is a tragic figure but remarkably low, when you consider 200 people die in workplace accidents, 800 are usually murdered, 3400 die on the roads, and 3900 die in domestic accidents.
106,000 people a year die from smoking-related causes in the UK (but there is conspicuously no war on tobacco executives).
The most recent death on the UK mainland from an act of terrorism was in 2007. That victim was himself a terrorist (who died after driving his vehicle into Glasgow Airport).
Terrorists are, of course, filth.
But over exaggerating the risks, and using hysteria to justify curtailing freedom is also heinous.